21 January 2004
Details of Libya's nuclear weapons programme have exposed a thriving international black market in nuclear technology on an unsuspected scale.
Government officials, diplomats and nuclear specialists have described Libya's efforts to acquire uranium enrichment technology as more aggressive and successful than had been realised. Last month, Libya said it would give up its weapons of mass destruction programme.
They said Libya used a clandestine network of middlemen for a programme aimed at making enough highly enriched uranium to build a nuclear weapon.
Procurement efforts continued even as Libya negotiated with US and British governments last year. Its success was revealed only by inspections that followed Libya's agreement last month.
Libya had already secured many of the parts needed for thousands of steel centrifuges, based on a sophisticated German design. Many important components of a complete uranium enrichment programme were missing and Libya was still a long way from building a bomb, but the scale of what it had achieved opened experts' eyes.
"This is a major intelligence failure and a major failure of export controls," said David Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. But a senior US official said yesterday that Washington had been aware of Libyan efforts, stepped up after United Nations sanctions were suspended in 1999 when Libya handed over two agents accused in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
Libya sourced many materials from manufacturers in Asia and Europe. Many were shipped via the Gulf emirate of Dubai. Libyans also had "real time" access to nuclear expertise, Mr Albright said. A shipment of other centrifuge parts was made to order in Malaysia and seized on a German cargo ship last October.
Libya had also acquired two centrifuge designs that experts say came from Pakistan.
"They were buying for quite some time and a lot of stuff was still in shipping crates," said the senior US official.
"The important lesson from Libya is that there's no point in intelligence agencies collecting information . . . unless there's executive action that follows," said a senior western security official.
"We have been very lucky that on this occasion [the Libyan leader Muammer] Gadaffi came clean. But if he hadn't, what could we have done?"
New details of Libya's inventory:
Details of Libya's nuclear weapons programme have exposed a thriving international black market in nuclear technology on an unsuspected scale.
Government officials, diplomats and nuclear specialists have described Libya's efforts to acquire uranium enrichment technology as more aggressive and successful than had been realised. Last month, Libya said it would give up its weapons of mass destruction programme.
They said Libya used a clandestine network of middlemen for a programme aimed at making enough highly enriched uranium to build a nuclear weapon.
Procurement efforts continued even as Libya negotiated with US and British governments last year. Its success was revealed only by inspections that followed Libya's agreement last month.
Libya had already secured many of the parts needed for thousands of steel centrifuges, based on a sophisticated German design. Many important components of a complete uranium enrichment programme were missing and Libya was still a long way from building a bomb, but the scale of what it had achieved opened experts' eyes.
"This is a major intelligence failure and a major failure of export controls," said David Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. But a senior US official said yesterday that Washington had been aware of Libyan efforts, stepped up after United Nations sanctions were suspended in 1999 when Libya handed over two agents accused in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
Libya sourced many materials from manufacturers in Asia and Europe. Many were shipped via the Gulf emirate of Dubai. Libyans also had "real time" access to nuclear expertise, Mr Albright said. A shipment of other centrifuge parts was made to order in Malaysia and seized on a German cargo ship last October.
Libya had also acquired two centrifuge designs that experts say came from Pakistan.
"They were buying for quite some time and a lot of stuff was still in shipping crates," said the senior US official.
"The important lesson from Libya is that there's no point in intelligence agencies collecting information . . . unless there's executive action that follows," said a senior western security official.
"We have been very lucky that on this occasion [the Libyan leader Muammer] Gadaffi came clean. But if he hadn't, what could we have done?"
New details of Libya's inventory:
- Two sets of centrifuge designs. Centrifuges separate weapons- useful Uranium 235 from the more common isotope Uranium 238. The first and more primitive design was developed by Pakistan from a design stolen from the Anglo-Dutch-German consortium Urenco in the 1970s. But Libya had also acquired designs of the more sophisticated German G2 type.
- An arrangement or cascade of tens of centrifuges, tested without nuclear material. This was then dismantled and put in boxes. Tripoli had acquired many but not all high-quality parts to build thousands of G2 centrifuges.
- Large quantity of uranium-conversion equipment to manufacture uranium hexafluoride, the gas introduced into the centrifuges. Some elements of the array were missing.
By Mark Huband, Roula Khalaf and Stephen Fidler in London
© Financial Times 2004
